Abbott's frontbench waits in the shadows for victory

Tony Abbott seems curiously unwilling to wheel his team out into the sunlight.

Tracey Nearmy: AAP

Tony Abbott is starting the run home as clear favourite, but has not been too eager to parade much of his frontbench before the electorate, writes Mungo MacCallum.

So the economy's on the skids, everything is doom and gloom and we're going to have an election.

And what an election - an election where the Government is pretending to be the Opposition and the Opposition is promising to do most of the things the Government has proposed.

An election in which the Prime Minister has cast himself as the man he defeated in 2007, offering John Howard's mantra of "Who do you trust?" as his challenge to an Opposition Leader he is implicitly likening to Howard's victim of 2004, the unquiet Mark Latham.

And above all an election in which a government most of the voters would like to change led by a man most of them rather admire is pitted against an opposition most of the voters would like to install led by a man most of them don't want as prime minister. Stop the polls, we want to get off.

However, the grim fact remains that on September 7 we will all have to make the choice, so at last weekend's Byron Bay Writers Festival I tried a small experiment. I asked a tent crowded with about 800 people how many of them considered that Kevin Rudd, in his first term of office, had been a good and effective prime minister. Not more than 50 raised their hands. Then I asked the rest of them how many planned to vote to make Tony Abbott prime minister. Precisely six responded.

Okay, this was the Byron Bay Writers Festival, where the numbers were obviously skewed. But it did, I think, represent Labor's last, best and probably only hope: to capitalise on the widespread feeling that, in the end, Abbott represents too great a risk. Hence Rudd's "Who do you trust" approach, and hence also Abbott's improbable transmogrification, from wrecker to builder: from opposing everything for more than three years, he suddenly found himself in furious agreement with Rudd on most of the 2013 budget measures, the urgent need for the NBN (at least in truncated form) and even the Gonski schools funding model, which he had previously derided as expensive and unnecessary.

His education spokesman, Christopher Pyne, had already quietly given the Better Schools program a year's reprieve; now Abbott announced that the funding would endure for the next four years, which in practical terms means forever. No government would have the nerve to take it away once it became established.

This new mantle of reason, compromise and even bipartisanship does not sit easily on the pugnacious Abbott; he still looks as if he would be far more comfortable in Speedos or Lycra, preparing for a bit more biffo. But he has clearly decided to follow the advice of his minders: the best way to secure the victory for which he has worked so tirelessly and which, until last month, appeared certain, is to play the statesman. And one way in which he has attempted to do this is to pose as the champion of stability: while within the Government chaos prevailed as ministers and even the prime minister rose and fell, his own front bench remained as changeless and immovable as the fixed stars.

Well, yes, an impartial observer might note, and it has also had about the same impact on humanity. It is notable that Abbott has not been too eager to parade many of them before the electorate. We are familiar with the aforementioned Pyne, with Joe Hockey, Julie Bishop, Scott Morrison and of course Malcolm Turnbull. But what about the man who would be Abbott's deputy, the leader of the National Party?

This is in fact the barely visible Warren Truss, not the flamboyant Barnaby Joyce. How many people are aware that David Johnston would be Abbott's defence minister, or that Peter Dutton would be running health? Do they have any policies in either area? For that matter, do they even exist?

And these are just the ones in some of the more important portfolios. Others, like Michael Ronaldson (Veterans' Affairs), Bruce Billson (Small Business and Consumer Affairs) and Michael Keenan (Justice and Customs) seem destined to pass their lives in total obscurity.

Then there are the revenants from the past whom Abbott seems to have consciously concealed from public view: Kevin Andrews, Bronwyn Bishop and, incredibly, Phillip Ruddock, who, after nearly 40 years as an MHR, is apparently determined to stand again in the hope that he may retain his sinecure as Cabinet Secretary. This lot are not so much stable as fossilised. Abbott may boast about the breadth, width, depth and capacity of his team, but he is curiously unwilling to wheel them out into the sunlight.

But for all that, he is starting the run home as clear favourite and, by any measure, outright leader. Given that the Coalition is assured of picking up the rural seats vacated by independent Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, Abbott only needs to win one more to take government.

Rudd, on the other hand, has to pick up three just to stay level. Labor is most unlikely to retain all its New South Wales seats: in particular Dobell, formerly held by Craig Thomson, looks gone for all money. It seems certain to lose two if not more in Tasmania, and there are a couple on Victoria and one in Western Australia which look very vulnerable. In other words, Rudd would need to take his home state of Queensland by storm to give himself and his party a chance. It could happen, but it probably won't: Labor had been on the nose too noisomely and too long to recover from its near-death experience in just a couple of months.

But with Tony Abbott as the Opposition, it is still barely possible. If you can get better than six to four about Labor, please let me know.

Mungo MacCallum will be writing weekly for The Drum about the federal election. He is is a political journalist and commentator. View his full profile here.

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